AvenTOM

About AvenTOM Ltd

AvenTOM is owned 50:50 by the self made Billionaire Lord Alan Sugar and Inventor Tom Pellereau. AvenTOM came about after Tom won the BBC Apprentice which Lord Sugar hosts and gained £250,000 investment from the Billionaire.

Since winning The Apprentice in front of a record 10.4 million viewers, Tom Pellereau ('Inventor Tom') and Lord Sugar have focused on 'Reinventing beauty accessories'.

About Tom Pellereau

Tom is best known for winning The BBC Apprentice and becoming Lord Sugar’s first business partner. See Tom on BBC Apprentice here

Tom’s desire to fix the small frustrations in life, his innovative thinking and simple approach to design has been fundamental in the ongoing development of the business. He says “I love inventing products to make people’s lives better”.

TOM PELLEREAU (2011 winner)

His inaugural product, the uniquely curved S-file is available across the globe, with over 2 million Stylfiles now sold.

With Lord Sugar's guidance he has gone to invent Baby nail clippers with a safety spy hole, so you can see exactly what you are cutting, ingenious gel nail polish remover kits and clips which prevent you damaging your natural nail and most recently the StylPro™ makeup brush cleaner which cleans and dries makeup brush in seconds leaving them hygienically cleaner, saving consumers and professional hours. With stockists including Boots, Tesco, Waitrose, Argos, Currys and distributors in Ireland, Australia, Thailand and most recently Japan Tom is fast making his mark in beauty world wide.

From the age of 4, Tom wanted to be an inventor. He has always been fascinated by how things work, taking them apart and rebuilding them.Tom loves solving problems and works with the world's top health and beauty professionals to invent products which make life easier. Tom's inventions include:

About Stylfile

He noticed that using a flat file to create a smooth curve was difficult, especially with your non-dominant hand. It took many late nights to develop the initial prototype and since the first design, created in Tom's kitchen, Stylfile has continued to evolve. Gaining incredible momentum since its commercial launch in 2012, the Stylfile brand has developed into a complete collection of nail grooming products and the range now includes everything needed to keep your nails in great shape.

The evolution of the Stylfile now includes: 'Infuse,' the first moisturising file that nourishes the cuticles with almond oil while you file; Mani-pro 3 in 1 kit for buffing and cuticle maintenance in one compact tool and a pocket sized 'Emergency' version of the Stylfile, compact and perfectly packaged for repairs on the go.

About StylPro

Tom’s interest in makeup brushes and their cleanliness was first sparked by a make up artist. He says, “I had been running a programme called Tom’s Testers for a while, where I tell hand-picked beauty super-users about my latest inventions months before we launch. At the end of a session in Manchester, I asked if there was anything I could invent that would make their lives easier. One immediately said: “Please, please can you create something that makes it fast and easy to clean makeup brushes?” I quickly discovered that washing makeup brushes is a messy and fiddly task that everyone loathes doing – and that makeup professionals can have hundreds of brushes in their kit bags! Even worse is that some consumers don’t wash their brushes at all, meaning that they’re literally painting their faces with bacteria every single day.

That set me on a mission to develop the fastest and most efficient makeup brush cleaner. We carried out some focus groups and one-to-one sessions with both professionals and consumers. The more people we spoke to, the clearer it became that while cleaning the brushes is a problem, the biggest issue is drying them. A lot of people were put off washing their brushes because they think they’ll still be wet when they want to use them again 24 hours later. I knew I had to invent something that not only cleaned brushes thoroughly, but dried them at lightening speed too.

Testing

As part of our testing we created a machine which could repeat test the action of cleaning a brush and spinning dry 500 times.

We then took photos of the brushes to see if the brush changed at all. Synthetic brushes were unaffected by the spin. However natural brushes, especially soft hair like goat or blue squirrel, did slightly splay out when spun dry repeatedly 500 times. We therefore recommend you only spin dry natural bristle brushes for very short periods (2-3 seconds) then check. It is recommended for soft natural brushes to be left slightly damp and left to air dry for a short period. If any bristles do splay, use a damp cloth to reshape the bristles and leave the brush to air dry for a few minutes. The dampness should make the bristles come back into shape.

The spinning action which opens up the brush bristles exerts far less force than the squeezing and pulling action used why drying a brush between your fingers.

To ensure that the StylPro is not only faster, but also more efficient than traditional methods, an independent laboratory was employed to carry out the tests. Scientists deliberately applied 100,000 bacteria to a number of clean brushes. They then used an identical amount of makeup on each brush before cleaning - some using anti-bacterial soap and water, some using a well known branded brush cleanser and some using the StylPro. The tests proved that the StylPro is as good, if not better, at removing bacteria versus soap and water and branded makeup brush cleaner sprays. Visually the StylPro left brushes looking much cleaner too. But best of all, unlike all other methods, the brushes were completely dry and ready to re-use immediately.

Photo showing the bacteria on my face

About Stylfile Gel

As a result of the success of the Stylfile product range and Tom’s involvement in the nail industry and understanding of nail care and nail applications, yet another beauty problem came to light.

With the ever-increasing popularity of instant drying, durable high gloss gel nail polish applications came the ever-growing problem of just how to easily remove the polish and avoid nail damage.

At worst people are picking off the polish causing damage to the nail bed. Typically salons and in turn individuals use pieces of tin foil to wrap around each finger to hold the acetone soaked cotton wool in place. And often the foils slip which mean the acetone isn’t successfully applied to the polish – and can even be damaging to skin.

Goodbye Foils – Hello Clips!

The new Stylfile Gel Polish Remover Kit brings you everything you need to safely remove gel nail polish at home.

The unique Stylfile Zebra S-file is the same S-shape as other files in the hugely popular Stylfile nailcare collection. It follows the nails’ natural shape, and has a unique buffing surface, making it easy to buff the surface of the gel polish away before soaking the nails, even when using your non-dominant hand.

Gone are the fiddly foil wraps. In their place the kit has an ingenious set of re-usable clips that are placed over cotton wool soaked in the gel polish remover solution to hold it firmly and comfortably on each nail, making sure the soak off is quick and effective.

Gel nail polish lasts weeks and looks amazing. It’s no wonder they are hugely popular. However people generally believe that gel nail polish damages the natural nail. According to Jenny Longworth, nail technician to the stars, the damage is often caused by incorrect removal of the polish.

This inspired Tom to find a way to safely, easily and effectively remove gel polish without causing damage. He met with experts at the University of Manchester and was able to use their ultra sonic device – one of the only machines in the world able to measure the thickness of nails at the nail bed and used it in consumer testing of his new kit.

These encouraging results showed Tom that participants’ nails seemed unaffected after using the removal kit.

None of the testers felt there was any damage to their nails and reported that it was easier to remove the gels, required less scraping and loved the fact they were able to do the removal themselves. Every tester said they would use the kit instead of their normal removal method and would have gel polish applied more often, now they could remove it easily themselves